Mystikal Released From Prison

After six years in prison
on a sexual battery and extortion charge, [artist id="19768"]Mystikal[/artist] has been released and is home. The rapper, whose career reached the mainstream with his hit “Shake Ya Ass,” phoned in to Louisiana radio station Q93 and spoke with jock Wild Wayne.

“My feet is back on the ground,” Mystikal exclaimed. “It’s been a long time.” He said he was on his way to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to see his family.

Mystikal (real name: Michael Tyler) was sentenced to six years in prison in January of 2004. He was arrested in July of 2002 along with two of his bodyguards for threatening to turn his former hairstylist in to police for cashing $80,000 worth of unauthorized checks from his bank account. The stylist said that she was forced to have sex with all three men in exchange for their silence. As part of a plea bargain, all three pleaded guilty. Mystikal was released on the original charges in June 2007 and was immediately transferred to the David Wade Correctional Center for a 2006 conviction for failure to file taxes. Under the terms of the original plea agreement, Mystikal has five years of probation upon his release and has to be registered as a sex offender in Louisiana.

When Mystikal went to prison, he was still a very viable rap act. His 2000 LP Let’s Get Ready went multi-platinum and the Neptunes-produced “Shake Ya Ass” catapulted him into a mainstream star. The 2001 follow-up, Tarantula,
wasn’t as successful, but before his problems with the law, the MC was focused on coming back stronger than ever with a new album.

“It still feels like a dream, man,” Mystikal told Q93. “I was gone so long, all the things I achieved, all the accolades I attained, it felt like it was dream. It felt like I’d never done that stuff. But watch how I shake this world up now — I want reparations.”

The former No Limit Soulja says that while he was in jail he didn’t see Master P but did speak with P’s brother, C-Murder. He listed NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal as one of the people who visited him while he served time in Elayn Hunt Correctional Facility in Louisiana.

“To be honest, I ain’t do nothing. It had to be God,” the rapper said about what got him through his bid. “I couldn’t have done that. When I look at it now, it seems like it was easy because it’s over with. But going through it, ah man, it was tough. I had to get out the way and let God handle it for me.

“You gotta be down to earth,” he continued. “I took it in stride. It was tough to take it in stride. There’s always worse [things]: especially after 1994, the death of my sister. Nothing could be that bad. Then [No Limit rapper] Soulja Slim had just died [in 2003]. I was grieving him and morning him. I was kinda numb. It was a lot of things. I’m back.”

Even behind bars, Mystikal kept abreast of all the current events and says he was most affected by the Hurricane Katrina disaster and Barack Obama becoming president. He also assessed himself and so many of his peers such as C-Murder, Lil Wayne and T.I. having to go to jail after becoming so successful in their careers.

“We gotta pay more attention to what we doing, ourselves,” he opined. “We can’t be foolish, especially when you’re blessed and successful beyond your dreams. We gotta tighten up.”

As far as his resuming his career, the energetic MC says he has plenty of material written and record labels have expressed interest. He does owe one more album — as far as he understands — to Jive records.